Nicaraguans Find "USA"
in Booming Costa Rica
By John McPhaul and
Philip Barbara
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica
(Reuters) - "I'm Saved,"
reads a sign, in
Spanish, outside a tin
shack in a
garbage-strewn slum in
the Costa Rican capital.
Then, "USA in Costa
Rica."
The crude sign expresses
a sentiment that is a
reality for the hundreds
of thousands of
Nicaraguans who have
migrated to Costa Rica,
which for them is a
nearer and much more
attainable promised land
than the United States.
The man who posted the
sign is away, working a
construction job on
Costa Rica's booming
Pacific coast, where
many wealthy foreigners
are buying homes and
land, but his family is
here.
"He doesn't want to go
back" to Nicaragua, said
his sister Miriam. "Not
enough work. There is
nothing."
The man and his family
are among hundreds of
thousand of Nicaraguans
who have arrived in
Costa Rica in waves
since the early 1970s,
fleeing war and poverty.
Now another wave of
immigration is rising on
surging Costa Rican
growth, and many here
expect imbalances to
only get worse when
Costa Rica joins the
Central American Free
Trade Agreement (CAFTA),
which will relax trade
restrictions with the
United States.
But far from rejecting
immigrants, the
government welcomes them
and is preparing to
offer work permits to
its neighbors, most of
whom will come from
chronically impoverished
Nicaragua.
"We believe we'll need
about 40,000 Nicaraguan
workers" right away,
Mario Zamora, the Costa
Rican director of
immigration, said.
Forest-cloaked Costa
Rica's low-skilled
immigrants work in
agriculture, at
construction sites and
as domestics and
security guards -- jobs
Costa Ricans, better
educated and settled in
the middle class, prefer
not to do.
Costa Rica, known for
its premium coffee and
thriving eco-tourism
industry, is growing at
more than six percent
for the third straight
year. Unemployment is
4.6 percent, down from 6
percent in 2006.
BABY BOOMER RESORTS
The economy is also
lifted by resort and
condominium development
on the Pacific coast
that is becoming a U.S.
baby boomer playground,
and a high-technology
sector around an Intel
Corp plant near the
capital, San Jose.
The 2000 census counted
226,000 Nicaraguans in
Costa Rica compared to
45,000 in 1984, said
Guillermo Acuna of the
academic organization
FLACSO. Some groups
estimate the number has
risen to 400,000 to
500,000 legal and
illegal Nicaraguans, or
about 10 percent of the
4.5 million population.
Ronald Peters, executive
director of the coffee
growers' federation,
said he needs 10,000
more workers for the
harvest that begins in
December. The government
can help, he said, by
giving amnesty to
illegal Nicaraguans so
they step forward and
renew expired work
permits held by legal
migrants.
"They're here. We can't
let them go," he said.
"There's too much
competition with other
sectors" for their
labor.
"Under CAFTA it's going
to be tougher," he said.
Costa Rica approved the
Central American Free
Trade (CAFTA) on October
7 by popular vote, but
legislative hurdles
remain.
The business community
expects that further
access to U.S. markets
will mean a demand for
highly skilled talent
such as engineers in the
country's growing
information technology
sector.
"A lot of the ideas
about how to penetrate
the U.S. market will be
provided by executives
with experience already
doing this while in
other countries," said
Zamora.
INFLUENCE ON IMMIGRATION
LAW
Minimum wage for
agricultural workers is
from $1.25 to $1.80 an
hour, while construction
workers get about $1.25
an hour.
But competition for
labor is growing
throughout the region.
The $5.25 billion
expansion of the Panama
Canal that began in
September needs 8,000
workers, and El Salvador
is absorbing migrants
now that it is more
politically stable,
experts said.
After the September 11
attacks in the United
States, Costa Rica's
immigration law
emphasized security and
it severely restricted
legal entry. But to ease
immigration now, the
administration of
President Oscar Arias is
pushing a revised law
through the legislature
to simplify paperwork
and promote immigrants'
rights.
As in other countries
where immigration is a
heated issue such as the
United States, whenever
the media publicizes a
crime by an immigrant,
the immigration debate
flares up, exposing
racism toward migrants,
experts said.
Yet as the role migrant
workers play in the
economy is better
understood, the debate
is changing. The free
health care and
education immigrant
children receive, for
instance, are seen less
as a national burden and
more of an acceptable
result of integration,
said Jorge Peraza-Breedy
of OIM, an immigrant
advocacy organization.
For Nicaraguans living
in La Carpio slum, the
choice is clear. Maria
de Trinidad Calderon,
85, known as the
grandmother of La Carpio,
said Nicaragua is the
same as it was when she
fled 15 years ago. "It
never gets fixed."
Sitting behind a display
of vegetables she
offered for sale, she
said Costa Rica is where
she will stay.
"When I die, I want to
be buried in Costa
Rica." |
